Rubio says LBJ's war on poverty failed "because it's incomplete"

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has put fighting poverty at the
top of his agenda 50 years after President Lyndon Johnson used his State of the
Union address to declare a “war on poverty.”

Rubio, who spoke to CBS’ Bob Schieffer about his ideas on
“Face the Nation” Sunday, said Johnson’s vision never really came to fruition.

“As far as the war on poverty is concerned, its programs
have utility. They do help alleviate the consequences of poverty, but
they don't help people to emerge from that poverty. And that's why I feel
like the war on poverty has failed, because it's incomplete,” Rubio said. “I
think we have failed to take the next step, which is to help people trapped
with inequality of opportunity to have the opportunities to build for
themselves a better life.”

Rubio outlined
his proposals in a speech last week, included streamlining federal antipoverty programs into a “Flex Fund”
that would be distributed to the states to spend how they see fit, and
replacing the Earned Income Tax Credit with a so-called “federal wage
enhancement” to supplement the income earned by those in low-wage jobs in order
to make working more attractive than collecting unemployment benefits.

He said that
some antipoverty programs, like the administration’s Head Start initiative, are
“geared in the right direction” but need to be reformed and given more
flexibility in the hands of local officials.

“I'm not
saying we should dismantle the efforts. I'm saying that these efforts
need to be reformed and I believe the best way to reform them is to turn the
money and the influence over to the state and local level, where I think you'll
find the kinds of innovations that allow us to confront an issue that's complex
and, quite frankly, diverse,” he said.

Proposals to block-grant funds to states have drawn some
criticism from Democrats like Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who appeared on the
show after Christie and said the idea “bothers me.”

“If
you're gonna take these programs, if you're going to say that about Medicare,
too, and put it in a basket in the states -- you see what states have done,”
Cummings said. He noted that in Rubio’s home state of Florida, “we've got
800,000 people, Bob, who could have been placed in Medicaid under the
Affordable Care Act and could be being treated right now. There are
people watching this show right now that could be being treated for colon
cancer or serious diseases that are not. And he hasn't done anything on
that.”

Rubio argued
that an expansion of the Medicare program for the states is different than what
he was suggesting because the states would be on the hook for the costs after a
few years.

“Under Obamacare, when you turn Medicaid over to the states,
what you're saying to them is, the money will be available up front for the
expansion for a few years. Then, the money will go away, but you get stuck
with the unfunded liability,” he said.

Politifact reports states will
not be left with the entire cost of expanding Medicaid. The federal government
will pay the 100 percent cost of expansion for the first three years, and states
would gradually have to assume 10 percent of the cost but not more over
time.

But Cummings did say he was pleased to hear Rubio’s
admission that federal anti-poverty programs have helped many people out of
poverty in recent decades. He also said he hoped Rubio would be “one of the
lead people” in raising the minimum wage, a top Democratic priority in 2014.

That is unlikely to happen. In his speech last week, Rubio argued
that a minimum wage increase was not the solution to help the country’s poor.

“Raising the minimum wage may
poll well, but having a job that pays $10 an hour is not the American Dream.
And our current government programs, offer at best only a partial solution.
They help people deal with poverty, but they do not help them escape it,” he
said.